Wendell Berry is a farmer, poet, environmental activist, and theologian. He is the author of more than thirty books, including novels, poetry, and essays. His work draws on the sacredness of everyday life and the beauty of creation. An ardent Christian pacifist, Berry is nonetheless a passionate critic of organized Christianity’s complicity in the degradation of the environment.

The imagery in this icon draws from one of Berry’s most famous poems, The Peace of Wild Things:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Half of the proceeds from the sale of this icon benefits The Climate Emergency Fund, a new non-profit supporting environmental activists building new movements to save the climate.